Around the World — Orson Welles’ ill-fated Broadway collaboration with Cole Porter — will be recalled in an upcoming podcast from Porchlight Music Theatre of Chicago.
Porchlight Music Theatre will utilize the only surviving recording of the musical: an abbreviated performance by the original cast broadcast on CBS radio’s The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air on June 7, 1946. In addition, Porchlight Artistic Director Michael Weber will discuss Around the World‘s history with Wellesnet administrator Ray Kelly.
The podcast will be available on Spotify, YouTube and Facebook beginning Tuesday, January 19, at 1 p.m., CT.
The vintage radio show is the only recording of the musical and “while abbreviated, it is a ‘time machine’ experience that any fan of Orson Welles will relish,” Weber said.
“The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air production of Around the World is an invaluable one-of-a-kind opportunity to experience a live performance of an Orson Welles theatrical production, featuring members of the original cast, presenting their work exactly as they did eight shows a week at Broadway’s Adelphi Theatre in 1946,” Weber said.
Kelly said he was thrilled when he learned Porchlight Music Theatre was going to do a podcast dedicated to Around the World.
“It was a wildly extravagant Broadway production, which paired Welles’ stage wizardry with the music of Cole Porter,” Kelly said.
Running about three hours, including 30 minutes of film footage, Around the World featured 38 sets, a three-ring circus on stage, a train running through the American West, and four mechanical elephants. The show required 50 stage hands and a cast of 70.
Orson Welles and Cole Porter at the rehearsals for Around the World. (LIFE magazine photo)
Around the World premiered at the Adelphi Theatre on May 31, 1946, but its audience withered in the hot summer months. It closed on August 3, 1946 after 75 performances.
Welles reportedly lost more than $300,000 on Around the World, which he had planned to bring to England. However, the British trade unions would not let him use the U.S.-built sets and props.
Upon its Broadway debut LIFE magazine called Around the World “the most overstuffed conglomeration of circus, magic, movies, old-fashioned spectacle and penny peep shows that Broadway has seen since the days of Barnum’s Museum.”
In his later years, Welles — whose impressive stage credits included “Voodoo” Macbeth, the controversial Cradle Will Rock and a modern dress Caesar — boasted that Around the World was the theatrical work he was proudest of.
The Around the World podcast is part of Porchlight’s ongoing online series, WPMT Presents: Classic Musicals from the Golden Age of Radio!
Some of the more than two dozen previous WPMT Presents episodes may be found on YouTube at youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmRg3WE1vRnXk3R-1PWF-5NUDsW_Pciwl, as well as Spotify at open.spotify.com/show/08vx0YcY9pvIDNsv8T1P8O and on Facebook at facebook.com/watch/106714362260/2343623975939488
Porchlight Music Theatre has been a staple of the Chicago arts scene for more than 25 years.
Since 1995, Porchlight has produced more than 70 Mainstage productions, 18 Porchlight Revisits productions and 12 editions of New Faces Sing Broadway.
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